


put your head on my shoulder

by disoriented_writing



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Lap Sex, Lots of kissing!, NSFW, Unprotected Sex, ft. my oc but if there's a demand i can rewrite this as a reader insert tbh, homeboy is a sweet shy boy, lowkey? hand kink, muriel blushing, muriel cries when he nuts and you cant convince me otherwise, some minor banter, thats my real kink tbh, theres a lot of buildup lmao im a coward, this is just unrepentant adorable fluffy smut tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 14:49:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20098963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disoriented_writing/pseuds/disoriented_writing
Summary: She is surrounded with him and his particular sort of heat, the kind that fills up the void in herchest, makes all the leftover rigidity in her body relax.It’s nice. It’s — it’sreally nice, honestly. It makes it so much easier to settle down, to let thespace between them fill with hot air and stuttering breath. His mouth is chapped and hesitantagainst hers. There’s a gentleness, here — in the tilt of his head and the press of his lip, in thesweet, bare-brushing scratch of his scruff against her chin that makes something deep in herchest ache and ache andache.





	put your head on my shoulder

Muriel’s warm.

Touching him is — it’s like waking up after a long, cold night, and the inside of the blanket cocoon you’ve built around yourself is warm, and the morning sun makes for a soft awakening. Touching him is like sitting by a campfire, one half of your body just this side of chilly and the other just this side of hot; you reach your dewy, grass-stained toes toward the flames, and the heat on your feet seems to seep through the rest of you. Touching him is like sinking into a tub’s worth of steaming water, washing clean the day’s dirt and grime, and letting the not-quite-scald of it soothe every sore and tense muscle in your body. 

The thing is, Koe’s always _cold_. Perpetual shakes and shivers from bad circulation wind her body up like a spring, brittle and sickly and held together by a thin layer of _nothing, nothing, it must be magic _ — 

But he’s warm enough to penetrate her jittery skin and fragile bones. His arms wrap around her waist, fingertips careful_, so careful _ against her spine, drawing little patterns against the skin exposed there. The thickness of his thighs makes it just this side of uncomfortable to settle in his lap, but the _ beat-beat-beat _ of his heart beneath her palms makes it worth it. She clings to his shoulders, feeling the muscles there shift with every movement of his arms, with every tensing of his figure. 

She is surrounded with him and his particular sort of heat, the kind that fills up the void in her chest, makes all the leftover rigidity in her body relax.

It’s nice. It’s — it’s _ really nice_, honestly. It makes it so much easier to settle down, to let the space between them fill with hot air and stuttering breath. His mouth is chapped and hesitant against hers. There’s a gentleness, here — in the tilt of his head and the press of his lip, in the sweet, bare-brushing scratch of his scruff against her chin that makes something deep in her chest ache and ache and _ ache_. 

It makes Koe weak at the knees. He's just as vulnerable as she is, like this, with his flushed-up cheeks and fluttering eyelashes and too-fast, too-wild heartbeat under her palm. It makes her heady, knowing he's just as tuned-up and sensitive. 

It makes it easy to lose herself in their kisses and let herself shiver with every caress of his fingertips up her spine, along her back.

Except — his fingers get tangled up in her hair. Unfurled from its usual buns and braids as it is now, it was really only a matter of time. Startled at the sudden tug, he pulls back from her mouth.

"Sorry." He murmurs, peering around her to untangle his fingertips. She laughs a little, warmed from the inside out at the kindness of it.

"It's okay," Koe says, blinking slowly at him. His skin's red everywhere she can see — up at the tips of his ears, down to the middle of his chest. "It didn't hurt."

Once he’s distangled himself, she leans up to press another kiss at his mouth. With a dip of her head, she presses a kiss against his throat, bared and bathed in soft firelight as it is. A wake of goosebumps rises against her lips.

_ Addictive_. She presses another into his skin, as soft and sweet as she can make it. His Adam's apple bobs a little, rumbles with a hum just as soft as the mushy little feelings she's got holed up in her heart for him. "...That’s nice."

"Yeah?" She grins a little and kisses him again. His shaky breath brushes against the hair at the top of her head. Fleetingly, he glances at her, and tips his head down to gently brush their mouths together again. “You’re so sweet I feel like I could swallow you whole.”

“I —” his gaze trembles, just a little blurry in her vision from how close they are. It’s a satisfying thing, to hear his voice waver in his throat, and to watch him stumble to recover from something so simple. “I don’t —”

She kisses his skin again, soothing and only a little apologetic for the teasing. 

(It makes her wonder how flustered he’d be with her mouth wrapped around him, how he’d look with his hair all messed up from her finger tangling and his skin glistening with the effort of their movements.)

"I want —" the words have left her mouth before she even thinks it through. Muriel pulls back enough to give her room to speak. The sudden focused intensity of his gaze sends a bashful streak up her spine, and her lips clamp up.

When she doesn't continue, he prompts gently, nudging his nose against hers (almost, almost like Inanna; the thought brings a smile to her face). "What?"

"Please," she breathes, hoping he'll understand when she clenches her fingers against him, when she leans into his palms and tilts her hips against his. He only tips his head a little, frowns harder with confusion. 

"...Tell me." He demands, not quite looking at her. Her neck heats up, but there’s still a harsh ball of _ want _ filling all of the cavities in her body. 

"I want you to make me feel good." She murmurs against him, "I want _ us _ to feel good. Please?"

He tenses beneath her, stiffens up enough she gets worried she's said too much, but his voice is soft, careful when it rumbles out of him.

"I thought... weren't we... already?" 

Koe almost dies on the spot.

"I — well, yeah, but —” She has to fight her voice to keep a steady pitch, fight all the little tight twitches of desire and flustered embarrassment from squeaking it too high. "We are feeling good. I meant — a little something different than what we’re doing now.”

Her voice cracks, and shifts into something strangely hoarse. Embarrassed at herself, she tips her face into his shoulder. He remains silent, giving her the time to pull herself together — or, more realistically, he’s just as messy and flustered as she is. 

“We don’t have to, but I’d like to make love with you. If you’d like.”

He makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, something she can feel vibrate against her, vibrate _ through _ her, hit all those little sweet spots in her bones and between her thighs. 

“...Are… Are you sure.” There’s something hesitant in his voice, clinging to the back of his throat.

She pulls back to look him in the face, and although he’s bright red and he won’t look at her, his arms are still warm and tight around her, and he shows no signs of retreat. 

“Yeah,” she murmurs, gently taking his cheeks between her palms. “If you’d like to, too.”

He glances briefly at her, pupils blown wide enough to swallow her whole. Shallowly, he nods against her palms. The anticipation already curling in her gut churns at the sight of it, and she smiles. 

When she kisses him, then, it is soft and sweet and excited, as though her lips could press thanks into his skin, as though she could transfer all of her gratitude with it.

His palms slide slowly higher, higher, creeping hesitantly up at the edges of her crop top. It’s startling, at first, but she leans into his touch, sighs contentedly into his mouth. The hem is loose, all flowing and free against her chest; it'd be easy to slip his palms as high as he wished. 

But he doesn't. Of course he doesn't — by the time she’s thought of feeling his hands where she wants, his fingertips have stopped still.

She reaches down to take his arms, guide them to cup his huge hands against her breasts. 

"Touch me," she pleads, half breathless already. Muriel visibly swallows. “Please?”

His startled grunt is quiet in the air between them, but still it echoes in her ears. The soft, unintentional scrape of his callouses against the skin there has goosebumps shaking up her spine.

A satisfying feeling, it is; has excitement pooling up at the base of her spine. She leans into his touch, lets the careful skitter of his palm against her hardening nipple set her heart racing.

Her fingers itch to feel his skin beneath them, like some cold-blooded lizard longing for a warm rock. Though their position is a little awkward for it, she slides her fingertips up his arms, slips them along his shoulders to touch his torso.

Nimble fingers trace his chest, light against his skin, track healing scars and muscle and bone. Her mouth follows suit, kisses as much of the expanse before her as she can without bumping into his arms. It’s nice, listening to his breath catch in his throat, feeling his heartbeat skip-skip-skipping against her lips. 

Muriel’s palms push a little against her, and immediately worry replaces the desire and greed growing in her gut. She pulls back, removes her hands from his skin. Her mouth opens to apologize, to backtrack —

But then he’s leaning down, eyelids half-closed and cheeks flushed red-red-red. Softly, sweetly, his lips press against her collarbone, drag just slightly across her skin to her shoulders, and down toward the center of her chest —

Mimicking her movements on him.

The realization makes something fiercely adoring threaten to choke all of her words up in her throat.

She leans back a little more, gives his big body room to move, and one of his hands slides around her back to support the weight. His mouth travels to the edge of her shirt, tracing a wide, careful path, and Koe's heart jumps into her throat.

"Here —” she moves between them, reaching for the hem of her shirt. He pulls back, his ears tinged red and a bashful look coming in around his eyes. 

She tugs her crop top up and off of her body, tossing it haphazardly to the floor. The air must be cool on her skin, but with the heat of him so close she does not feel it. 

Muriel doesn’t give her enough time to appreciate the tint of his skin or the furrow of his brow before he’s settling his lips carefully against the top of her chest. With every pass of his mouth, she grows warmer and needier. Her head grows light, with it. Her palms grow impatient. 

The frustrating part of it, really, is that he’s so ginger, so fucking _ tender _ it makes the monster crawling up her spine seem contradictory. He's _ hot _ against her, wet from the kissing and just chapped enough to force a gasp from her throat when he _ moves _ and he’s not — he won’t — 

It’s not enough to satiate the thirst in her throat and the hunger in her belly. 

“Muriel —” she murmurs, hoarse with need and breathy in the night air. Her hips twitch, and slowly, deliberately, she grinds down against the heat pressing against her thigh, arches into his mouth at her breast. “Muriel, _ please _ —”

The friction against her cunt is enough to set her chest alight all over again, and she reaches down with the hand not tangled against his scalp to rock against her fingertips. She feels _ demanding_, feels desperation and craving in equal measures screaming _ I want I want I want _ in the back of her head like a child screaming for candy.

For a moment, she can only feel Muriel’s breath stuttering in his chest, and then he’s pulling back. Green eyes flick down to watch her hips twitch into her palm again, seemingly transfixed by the sight, and Koe flushes red under his gaze. He flusters, too, pink cheeks reddening quickly and mouth working wildly. 

Embarrassed by the intensity of his staring, she pulls her hand away from herself, but — _ but — _

Muriel’s eyes flicker to hers and back down, and his hand reaches slowly toward her, hesitant and cautious. Relief and frantic desire flood her at once, and she grabs at his wrist, urging him to cup her cunt with his hot palm. She shudders into the contact, grinding gently against the heel of his palm and letting the friction zap up her spine.

His fingers shift slowly against her, but he follows her movements with his own, dragging his hand gently across the heat between her thighs. 

“...You’re wet,” he notes, and she hasn’t the sense of mind to decipher what _ that _ tone was, but she nods firmly, flexes her fingers against his arms.

“I want you,” she tells him, the strain in her vocal chords making her voice come out reedy. Carefully, gently, she reaches out to run her fingers along the length pressing up against his pants. He twitches against her fingertips, and the feel of it sends a phantom ache through her core. “I want this inside of me.”

Muriel makes a noise somewhere between a grunt and a wheeze. His hand pulls away from her, and she has to clench her teeth around the disappointed whine that threatens to escape her throat, because — 

He’s reaching between them, for the belts and buckles holding his pants in place. A fierce, anticipatory excitement floods Koe’s body. His fingers fumble with fasteners, for just long enough that impatience claws at Koe’s spine. Finally, _ finally_, he pulls himself free, and Koe’s brain short-circuits a little.

In hindsight, Muriel is six foot, ten inches tall. It shouldn’t be surprising that he’s packing enough heat to split her in half. Her heart jumps into her throat anyway, pussy clenching down on nothing at the thought of stretch and sting.

She swallows down a whimper of anticipation, and curls closer, closer to him. When she looks him in the face again, he’s staring at the space between them, avoiding her gaze. Drawing herself up onto her knees, she presses a soft, deliberate kiss against the scruff at his jaw. His eyes flicker up to hers, and she flashes a smile brief and bright enough to turn the corners of his lips up.

The fabric of her own pants bunches at her hips, and a bubble of frustration forms in the center of her chest.

“I need to —” she cuts herself off, moves to get up off of his lap. Quick fingers untie the laces holding the pants to her skin, and quicker hands push them down. As she moves to kick them off, she loses balance, and her hand flies out to catch Muriel’s arm to steady herself again. He responds in kind, holding his hand up to use as a crutch. She flashes him another smile, warmed all over again from the kindness of his touch, and steps a little more carefully out of her pants.

The air is cold against the wetness between her legs. The tacky-sticky slick against her thighs has goosebumps rising over her skin all over again. Fingers wrapped tight in Muriel’s hand, she crawls right back into his lap, lets the heat of his legs and the pink of his cheeks and the strength in his hand in hers slide warm up her belly.

Once she’s settled back into his lap, spread open and vulnerable and just a little bashful, enough she flushes under the weight of his eyes on her, she takes another look at him. It’s assessing, this time — he’s really big, as any six-foot-ten man would be, and she, for certain, is _ considerably smaller_. The size difference makes her heady, usually — feeling _ small _ when one is tall is no easy feat — but she’s suddenly a little apprehensive at the thought of trying to take something within her she can’t hold in one hand.

She settles her free hand against her cunt; plenty wet, sure, but — two-finger fit is definitely not relaxed enough for _ that _ —

“Muriel, darling,” she swallows down her impatience and makes herself look him in the eye, even if he is determined to look anywhere else. “Would you mind helping me? You’re — really big, I just need to make sure I don’t die trying to take you.”

Koe hadn’t thought he could get any redder. She’s genuinely concerned about his health; there’s no way that much blood in the face is healthy. It’s a fascinating process, watching the shades turn from gerbera daisy to ripe strawberry. For fear of embarrassing him further, she tries her best not to stare, but it’s _hard _ when he’s being so cute about it.

“How do I…?” He starts, after a short and heavy silence. He leaves the sentence unfinished, but Koe gets it, and has to swallow thick around the bashfulness threatening to steal her voice.

“I’ll need to work up to something closer to your size, so it’d be easiest to start with your fingers.” She nods to herself and watches his Adam's apple bob in his throat. “Start with… um, maybe one? I’ll tell you when to add another.”

Hearing the air in Muriel’s chest stutter-stop-start when he inhales is a trip in and of itself. His mouth works and works, looking for all the world like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Koe understands that sentiment — with her pussy clenching down on air-and-nothing and her heart hammering two-time in her chest, his silence seems like a short eternity.

Slowly, slowly, he reaches his hand into the space between her legs. The palm of his hand once again drags against her, the sensation sweet and gentle and _ wonderful, wonderful_, warm and delicious. He flusters when he makes contact, skin against skin; brow furrowed, movements careful, he slides his fingers down, down, searching for the source of her wetness.

His finger slips through the slick, sliding into her as easy as breathing. Her sigh of relief mingles sweetly with the swallowing in his throat, and there is no real stretch here, but she enjoys it all the same. 

She murmurs for another, and he obliges, hesitant and tender. The stretch is very real, now — his fingers are just a bit wider, just a bit larger than hers, and he stills when she stiffens around him. It almost makes her whine, the lack of movement, the need for friction.

She hadn’t realized her eyes closed, but when she opens them again she’s treated to the sight of Muriel staring down in awe, eyes wide and cheeks flushed so, _ so pink_. Gently, she settles her hands atop his shoulders, using the leverage to fuck herself down onto his hand.

This time, his strangled gasp layers over her satisfied moan. This time, when his hand shifts, his fingers shift within her, nestling right up against all the little good places in her cunt.

No time at all, and all the time in the world, swallowed in centuries with every gasp of air, she begs for another, and he feeds it to her. His worry has dissipated, it seems; the air of hesitance is fleeting, and the monster in her belly is rumbling, and he is rumbling with her.

There’s a feral being in her chest, righteous and wonderful and needy, and she whimpers into the open air between them.

“I’m good, I’m ready —” she murmurs, fervent and hot, and clambers closer to him even as he nods shakily. His hand is wet with her slick, and he must realize this as he goes to touch himself. The sight of his arousal and shocked pleasure would be lovely to watch in all its glory, one day, but right now she’s empty and wanting and he’s close enough she can feel him, she can _ feel him_. “Muriel, _ please _ —”

His hand is gentle at her back, guiding her just that little bit forward, and there’s hunger in eyes, now, as he glances up at her. Pupils blown wide, mouth just a little slack, eyebrows crinkled in concentration. 

She sinks onto him slowly, balanced hands at his shoulders, thighs already shaking, and the stretch alone is enough to tip her head back with a groan —

The _ warmth _ is another matter. He’s hot like sunlight, hot enough to burn, and it’s inside her now, that addictive, euphoric, crucial heat — 

It’s more than she could have wanted. It’s so lovely she almost wants to cry.

Her thighs are shaking, but still she lifts herself up, lets herself drop back down, and the motion has Muriel’s eyelashes fluttering, whole face slack in open, undeniable, dumbstruck awe. 

“Good?” She asks, and her voice is raw, just this side of hoarse, and he twitches inside of her.

He doesn’t really respond with words, too speechless and shaken to formulate them — but his hands tighten just slightly against her waist, and his eyes are bright as they bore into hers. The full force of his attention is a lot to bear, but she can take it. She can take it. 

On her next descent, the head of his dick passes over something, _ something_, and her mouth falls open with it, the burst of warmth and sharp-tinged pleasure streaking up her spine. Carefully, she bounces on him, letting the burn of her thighs and the stretch of his cock inside her and the grease fire building in the curve of her pelvis fuel her need.

Muriel moans faintly, more a strained grunt than anything, and it’s still wonderful to hear, still heady to witness. He careens toward her, forehead landing with a gentle thump against her shoulder. Hiding. His face burns against her skin. Over-flustered, embarrassed, maybe. He doesn’t seem to mind when her movements dislodge his head a little, doesn’t seem to mind when her fingertips scratch along the base of his neck. 

“Okay?” She asks, released soft and rough into the night air, wet and humid around them. He nods against her shoulder, and tucks his lips against the hollow of her throat. It forces her chin up, but her head’s tipping back anyway with the force of her pleasure, the expansion within her every time she lowers onto him. 

Her thighs burn, but it’s a secondary feeling. A sidenote, as she bounces quicker, left in the dust of the craving in her spine.

Belatedly, she vaguely realizes her mouth won’t stop moving. She’s not sure she’s making sense — it all sounds like gibberish next to the sin-tight slide of his dick in and out and _ in and out_, anyway. It’s nigh overwhelming, the heat and the ache inside her and the twinge of fatigue in her thighs from holding herself up. Just a side-effect, the talking is, the nonsensical murmuring and begging and gratifications. 

It’s his fault, really, for hiding his lips away in her shoulder instead of kissing the words away from her lungs.

Muriel’s fingers come up to touch her face, perhaps her cheek, but a desperate sort of craving to _ shut up, already _ seizes her, and she sucks them into her mouth instead. His torso seizes with it, the catching of his breath made all the more pronounced with his body so intimately close to hers. 

Koe lets them go, the wet sound sickly-sinful, and tips her face up to the ceiling, lets the next lowering of her body onto his push his name from her lungs. 

She’s too hot, really — the sharp contrast of near emptiness when she rises and too-fullness when she welcomes him in is almost _ too much, too much_. Her thighs burn with it, skin flushed and beading sweat. _ He’s _ too hot, burning her up from the inside out, and every trace of coldness that once plagued her body is certainly banished.

His name tastes like wood smoke and man musk on her tongue, and she likes it, she loves it, she’ll say it a million times just to stain her teeth with the gentle euphoria of his fingertips in her spine and his warmth so deep within her it steals her breath away and the quiet racket of his breathing and moaning and stiff grunting next to her ear.

Like a pin dropping in a silent room, like the last leaf falling from a tree, like that feeling of sleeping and falling and jerking awake so suddenly your heart pounds with the thrill and the fear and the desperation of it, she shakes into him, and comes so hard the galaxies behind her eyelids grow bright enough nautical sailors would name their ships for them, so hard she cannot even feel him within her apart from pressure and heat, for the streaking pleasure strikes at her spine, climbs out her throat like some beast howling at the moon.

Hazily, through a fog of ache and stardust, she returns to her body. Somehow, she has not stopped moving despite the shakiness of her muscles and the looseness of her limbs, and she can feel Muriel moving beneath her, erratically half-thrusting up to meet her hips. He’s panting now, she can tell, though the realization passes without much thought and onto much more important things. The drag inside her still feels like a delicious rush of sugar and spice, but there is just this side of too much of it. Her body both welcomes and rejects him, now, both craving and abhorrent of the friction. 

Her breath catches and catches again in her throat, and Muriel whines lowly, throbbing harshly within her.

Her hand catches in his hair, fingers gently gripping and soothingly scratching along his scalp. 

“C’mon,” she coaxes sweetly, softly in his ear, and gooseflesh rises up on his skin against her fingertips. “Show me how _ good _ you feel, Muriel.”

He pants harshly into her shoulder, the hot condensation of his breath barely felt in comparison to the burning heat in her thighs and the sweltering warmth of the rest of his body. His body shakes a gentle, thrumming earthquake into hers, strung taut in every muscle fiber and tendon. He holds her, still, preciously and gingerly, but there is a fervency to the grip of his fingers at her spine, to the stubble against her collarbone, to the arms wrapped round her torso. From his throat rumbles something that might be her name, until his voice cracks and strains and becomes something reedy and so wondrously different to his normal voice it hardly sounds like it could have burst from him at all. 

And within her there comes a sudden and new and strange warmth that spills out around the cock inside her when she fucks herself down onto him again. Almost hysterically, she thinks of sunshine seeping through dappled tree leaves, of a great burst of light from a crack in the clouds. 

She must tell him this, that he feels like sunshine and fire-warmth and blanket-heat, for his ears go red again, and he curls in on himself just slightly, burying his face further into her shoulder as though he could hide from her truth if he really tried hard enough.

Slowly, she comes to a halt, when he has begun to soften inside of her, and when his body twitches as hers has with overstimulation, wrought dry of the hungry pleasures of lust. She lets him slip out of her and all but collapses into him, the tiredness of her thighs no longer bated back with the adrenaline of their intercourse.

A moment passes, and their panting breaths begin to slow once more. They’re sweaty and sticky and _ wet _ all over, on their thighs and against their chests and on Koe’s shoulder —

The wetness there suddenly feels _ very _ warm and very unlike the sweat clinging to her shoulders. A sudden and striking concern rises in her gut alongside the glowing sleepiness clinging to her bones.

“Muriel?” She murmurs, quiet and sweet in the air between them. He hasn’t let her go, hasn’t moved much at all, but at the sound of his name he tucks his nose into her throat. She can’t have that, not right now — as much as she loves to indulge, she really does need to check on him. Gently, she draws her hand up his shoulder and to his cheek, tucking her fingers underneath his chin to coax his face out. “Can you look at me, please?”

He sniffs, just once, and it’s the only confirmation Koe needs. 

Slowly, a little reluctantly, he leans back just enough to look at her — or, look _ away _ from her, really. His eyes are pink and glossy, cheeks flushed and shining just a little, from salty sweat and tears glistening in the firelight. 

She wipes at them gently with her thumbs, desperately fighting the sudden urge to cry with him, over-empathetic and guilty. He leans into her touch, his eyes fluttering closed, and some of the tension in his shoulders dissipates at the contact.

“You’re crying,” she says simply, worriedly. “Was that too much? Too fast?”

His eyebrows furrow, and he frowns a little, shaking his head. His eyes open, fixing on her briefly before flitting away like a shy pixie flying home. He makes as though to tuck his face back into her shoulder, only to abort the movement in favor of turning his face into her palm. The stubble scratches sweetly against her fingertips and distracts her only momentarily from the concern in her belly. 

“...It was good,” he tells her, hoarse and rough and serious despite the bright red tinge in his cheeks. “More than good.”

“Okay,” she says, and smiles at him and tries to convince the irrational fear in her brain screaming about the rarity of his tears that it _ is_, actually, okay. “A lot, though?”

He nods, and reaches up with one hand to touch hers at his cheek, maybe to reassure her. It works, at least a little bit. “Yeah. But worth it.”

The knot of fear in her chest unravels, and this time her smile is genuine. “Good! That’s good. I’m glad.”

She leans forward to kiss his cheek, brimming full of sleepy elation. He tastes of salt, still, and she means to kiss the remaining tears from his skin when he turns his cheek to intercept it. Her mouth lands at the corner of his, and she giggles warmly, wrapping her arms around his neck and curling her body into his. 

“You taste like dinner,” she mutters against his lips, and he balks. 

“No I don’t,” he says, and when she leans back to look at him, he’s pink all over.

“You do!”

“What are you, a cannibal?”

“Sure!” She says, and he must know she’s joking, because he doesn’t flinch away from her, as one might when confronted with a cannibal. “I only eat the sweetest and most wonderful of men, which means you, sir, are prime for consumption.”

“I —” He blinks widely, and rears back from embarrassment, turning outright red all the way to his belly button. She mimes as though she’s going to bite his shoulder, but pulls her lips over her teeth at the last moment, biting him about as effectively as a newborn baby.

She smacks her lips as she pulls back, licking them as if she has eaten a tasty morsel. “Absolutely delicious.”

“You’re ridiculous,” he tells her very seriously, and she grins at him. 

“And you resemble a very ripe strawberry.”

“...Shut up. Go away,” he tells her, very pointedly not looking at her, and she laughs.

“You’d have to let go of me,” she reminds him. His arm tightens around her, and the sweet and careful strength of it lights something delightful and reassuring in her spine, like coming home from a long trip away to find everything exactly as you left it, waiting for your return as patient as peace.

“...No,” he says petulantly.

“Good,” she tells him, tucking her face into his neck and letting her eyes close for just a moment. “I don’t want you to.”

They stay like that for a moment, or perhaps three; a meandering amount of time punctuated only by the softness of their breaths and the crackling of the fire and the enjoyment of each other’s company, sticky and sweaty though they are. 

“I’m sleepy,” she tells him at last, slumping into him, and he sighs a little. 

“...we should get clean,” he says quietly, regretful only for the requirement of movement to do so. “Then sleep.”

She protests with a short noise. “I did all the work. You’re on cleanup duty.”

He snorts, but unravels his arms from around her to gently deposit her boneless body horizontally on the bed. She doesn’t particularly feel like letting him go, but she’s too tired to keep holding on. “I’ll get the rag.”

She nods wisely, watching him until he leaves her line of sight, and then closes her eyes. He comes back to her in no time at all, the wet rag and bucket in hand, and carefully begins to wash the both of them up. She complains petulantly at the coldness of the water, and he mutters a short apology without stopping his ministrations. 

She’s dozing off by the time he’s done, gathered their clothing up and stripped himself of his sweaty loincloth and its new stains. He folds himself into the big bed, falling right into her open and grabby arms. The warmth of his skin beneath the furs and the beating of his heart beneath her cheek lulls her almost immediately to sleep, but she fights it off just long enough to speak.

“Thank you for tonight,” she murmurs, and she’s not entirely sure he even heard at all until he hums, his hands warm at her back, drawing soothing and lazy patterns into her skin.

“...Thank you, too,” he says, and she grins, worming closer. He smells like leaf-dew and wet smoke and myrrh, and it’s soothing, it is. If she could bottle it up, the scent of him, and take it wherever she goes — she’d never have trouble feeling safe and at home. 

“Goodnight,” she manages, and she doesn’t get to hear a response before she’s swept away to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! This was literally a six-month project because I'm a coward who can barely write smut if we're being honest.  
If you'd like to see a reader-insert version of this, let me know!  
Thank you for popping by!


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